


Scars

by mahoni



Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Alternate Universe - Space, Angst, Community: hc_bingo, Friendship/Love, M/M, Wordcount: 100-1.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-21
Updated: 2010-07-21
Packaged: 2017-10-10 17:39:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/102352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mahoni/pseuds/mahoni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes scars hurt more when they're gone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scars

Bob docked, and limped out of his shuttle into soft sunlight diffused through the hanger walls. Post-mission protocol for all long-term exploratory assignments dictated a visit to Medical first thing. He barely had time to register how strange everything looked after so long (Sol-tinged yellow hue) before caution-suited medics sat him in a carry chair and took him away. He answered their non-stop questions in a dazed, but accurate, mumble as they went.

When he'd been purged of all alien viruses, bacteria and other hangers-on, after shoddily-mended bones and deep tissue were put right and he was cleared for release, he stood alone in the cubicle. He found the clasp on his medical gown; a tug loosened it and it slid to the floor.

He had strange tan lines. Of everything he'd come home with, that was all that was left. He stared at himself in the long wall mirror: too thin from the unexpected ration scarcity, mostly pale, hair too long.

Skin too smooth. The medics had mended his scars, too. It was like they had never been.

When he finally stepped out into the exit corridor fully clothed, Brian was waiting. His shuttle had arrived and docked an orbit before Bob's. He looked tired. His hair was a mess from the hack job he'd insisted on doing every half ship-cycle to keep it short. The skin of his cheek and neck, wrecked in the same console explosion that nearly took Bob's leg off, was repaired. He had smooth, perfect skin again, and if he gave it a planetary cycle or two he'd have full-coverage stubble for the first time in a ship-year.

It was still obvious something had happened to him, though; the upper body of the space pirate tattooed on his neck was gone.

Envy made Bob's chest ache. All of the things they'd seen and been through -- the amazing and the horrible, the near-deaths, the betrayals -- all Bob had left were memories like knotty scars in his head. Brian had something solid, something real. Something he could wear on his skin forever.

"All better?" Brian said.

Bob stuffed his hands in his pockets and forced some kind of smile. "Good as new."

Brian nodded, and then slid a hand around the back of Bob's neck and pulled him down until their foreheads touched. He held Bob there for a moment. Bob closed his eyes. A moment later, the soft touch of Brian's fingertips on his face made so much tension drain away he almost sagged.

And as they stood there, some of the nausea that had been building since Bob had stepped off his shuttle subsided too. He started to breathe steady. The weirdness of no where to be, no critical systems to monitor, no one's safety to worry about, nobody setting up to stab him in the back, felt a little less weird.

But he still said, "I feel weird," because he needed to know it wasn't just him.

"Yeah," Brian said. He squeezed the back of Bob's neck gently and sighed. "Me too."

When Brian let go and pulled back, he seemed even more tired -- as tired as Bob suddenly felt.

"We got three cycles before debrief," Brian said. "What do you think. Real bed or real food?"

"Real food," Bob said emphatically. "Then some more real food. Then bed."

Brian snorted a laugh. "I like that plan." He thumped Bob on the arm and they headed down the corridor toward the mess.

*


End file.
